With his productionsIsabella's Room and The Lobster Shop, Jan Lauwers created theatrical works that chronicle the pursuit of happiness in a shocking way through a mixture of contemporary dance, fine art, family drama and modern musical. Together with Das Hirschhaus (The Deer House), commissioned by the Salzburg Festival, the two first parts make up a trilogy that departs from the most mundane to depict the most difficult: a felicitous life together.

"The occasion for writing The Deer Housewas a tragic event that took place a couple of years ago in the intimate surroundings of Needcompany. While we were on tour somewhere in France, one of our dancers, Tijen Lawton, received the news that her brother, the war photographer Kerem Lawton, had been shot in Kosovo. Lawton's tragic death was the starting point for a play about a group of theatre-makers who travel around in a world increasingly troubled by claustrophobia and ugliness. Everything is politics, but art is not everything. Art always gets lost in history, is futile and has no influence on any event whatsoever, and therein lies its mysterious necessity." (Jan Lauwers)